177 – Mothman Delusion: A New Year’s Resolution for Paranormal Research

The biggest paranormal story in the Midwest in 2017 was the winged humanoid sightings over Chicago and we have covered the Chicago Mothman extensively over the past several months. First in episode 159, we interviewed the editor of Phantoms and Monsters blog where many of the Mothman sightings have been reported, then we brought on the great cryptozoologist Loren Coleman who just released a new book Mothman: Evil Incarnate.

What’s the Mothman? A dark winged humanoid with glowing red eyes, made most famous by a series of sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the late 1960s. The sightings were followed by UFOs, Men in Black, and a tragic bridge collapse 13 months after the initial sighting.

The Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Fast forward to 2017 and the Mothman has been reported seen over the Chicagoland area dozens of times mostly to a blog called Phantoms and Monsters. My sister Allison has been looking at the stories and then doing investigations of the sites of each reported sighting over at her YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/mothman.

As she was digging she found inconsistencies in more and more of the accounts even going so far as having a private investigator look into a possible police report that was a featured account over the Summer. (She didn’t find it and either did the Chicago Tribune.) Plus, 3 out of the 4 Mothman reports that came into Illinois MUFON came from the same IP address (meaning same Wi-Fi network, meaning the same house.) She began to get skeptical whether or not there really are winged humanoids flying over Chicago.

For her efforts, she’s been interviewed on Midnight In The Desert and featured on the Mysterious Universe blog, but needless to say it hasn’t made her popular with the Chicago Mothman investigators. So for this first episode of 2018, we wanted to give the Chicago Mothman one more discussion because it was such a big story around these parts. Sure, we’ll come back when there’s a “break” in the case, but the important part is that in this episode we talk about our renewed resolve to use the scientific method in our paranormal research (and Patrick Swayze, but you’ll have to listen to figure how he fits in!)

And for this week’s song, we used some inspiration from good old Carl Sagan, the man who coined the phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. His book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a treatise on the scientific method and critical thinking. Yeah, it’s a buzzkill but if we’re ever going to convince the skeptics we gotta take getting the facts seriously. Here’s Sunspot with “House of Cards”.

It’s a demon-haunted world
and you don’t get to dig a grave in my backyard.
you know we have to be the candle in the dark
You can’t build a dynasty on a house of cards.You might think that you’re a monster but you’re just a quack
talking a lot of smack setting the whole field back
a lotta tall tales comin piling up to nothin
looking for the clicks and acting like like a d$%@.

it’s a curiosity, all this privacy
anonymity, who can you believe?
You can tell me all day ‘bout the trash you heard
doesn’t matter how absurd unless stand by your word

All this animosity comes down to money
You’re misrepping all the data just to fit your theory
You wanna sell books or you want some truth?
It sure looks to me you ain’t much of a sleuth

It’s a demon-haunted world
and you don’t get to dig a grave in my backyard.
you know we have to be the candle in the dark
You can’t build a dynasty on a house of cards.

Extraordinary claims, extraordinary proof
winged dudes on the roof kinda sounds like a goof
we need a real witness not all anonymous
how bout some testimony don’t sound like baloney.

Detail needs to be there, you know they’re gonna nitpick,
eaten by the cynics, defeated by the skeptics
t’s need to be crossed, you can’t just gloss,
over all the small stuff or things are gonna get rough.

Gotta share the data, info wants to be free,
transparency, no secrecy,
It takes all kinds of different minds
if we want it to be better, we gotta work together.

It’s a demon-haunted world
and you don’t get to dig a grave in my backyard.
you know we have to be the candle in the dark
You can’t build a dynasty on a house of cards.

I agree. I don’t think Lon was purposely defrauding anyone (I think the people sending in the reports from the same computer were the fraudsters). But talking smack about Sam in his book and then alienating Allison (not just from the “Taskforce” but actively trying to get her appearances cancelled) because their research didn’t support his narrative was a jerk move, so in the end he could’ve done the right thing but didn’t. And then his publisher starts in on Loren Coleman, talking crap right on Loren’s Amazon page and trying to start something. It’s all too bad. Disagreements and forthright discussion are good, working behind people’s backs to undermine them is detrimental to all of us.

That’s fair John. I always try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but I can see why getting your lectures cancelled would make you dislike a guy. After he tried to do the same thing to Allison, this seems to be a trend of his.

I think his need to silence those whose stories do not fit his narrative belies a lack of confidence in the research. That’s why I steer clear of his shoddy work and investigation now.

Honestly…your whining is laughable, especially from the racist John Ventre. You were sanctioned by MUFON because I brought your bias to light and you were then rejected and shamed by hundreds of researchers. Allison and Sam have been piggy-backing my research and work in an attempt to get their name out into the public. Keep throwing your BS at the wall…

I can’t speak about John Ventre or any of that because all I know is what I read on the Punk Rock and UFOs site. On this podcast, we’re 100% against racial or sexual discrimination of any kind.

What we are discriminating about is evidence.

This episode speaks for itself and also the fact that you decline to even address the actual discussion also says volumes. You haven’t touched the fraudulent police report claim and still hide behind an incorrect claim about how the Internet works (that the same IP address can be shared by multiple locations in a big city – if that’s true, how could the RIAA file-sharing lawsuits be prosecuted? How could police trace Internet activity to someone’s house when they’re pursuing a cybercrime? It doesn’t work like that, that’s why.)

Instead of defending the research, you keep talking smack about Allison and Sam and say he’s intimidating witnesses and she’s harassing them, all in the name of notoriety. Instead of defending the research, you double down on the anonymity of the reports and keep trying to silence the people that have actually been to the sites in Chicago and are trying to get fact from fiction, to tell the difference between real sightings and hoaxed emails. When you’re ready to talk about the actual cases and finding the truth, come on back.

LOL…why would I even entertain the idea of talking to you? I don’t have to defend myself or the task force to anyone. We know what’s the truth and what’s not. The fact that your conjectures fall on deaf ears, except for your small cabal, speaks volumes.